Woke up this morning to find that players are already mass exiting North America for the European leagues; and I do not blame them. I can't blame them.

If it was my employer pulling the same stuff and locking me out of a job I too would go find work else where. Only I don't make a minimum $500,000 a year nor did my company have a net profit of $3.3 billion last year.

It isn't that it is hard for the "every day person" to understand what the players and the owners are going through - it just shows how out of touch people are with society. Millionaires fighting millionaires over billions of money - it's just like watching the political coverage.

In reality I cannot change anything - the Nation Hockey League doesn't care about me; just my money.

I make no where near what these players and owners do; but they make their money because I, like all other fans, spend my hard earned money at games, buying my favorite teams gear, and spending the outrageous price for food and drinks at the arena.

That is what matters to them.

What else doesn't matter to them are all the people they just left unemployed.

This is not just a players vs. ownership issue. More "everyday people" are being affected by this lockout than players and owners combined; but they are just footnotes.

The ticket sales representative, the game day staff - the people that do not set your drink prices but make sure your beer doesn't have too much head on it so that you get your moneys worth. The people that bring out stat sheets to crazy fans waiting outside the arena past midnight hoping for a close up glimpse of their favorite player. The people that deal with those that had too much to drink before the game started and yet continued to drink at the game.

The hard working people that are just trying to get by and support their families. They are the ones hurting the most.

Not me. Not us fans.

It is the business owners near the arenas and the sports bars that would actually play hockey over basketball or football where hockey fans could go to catch a game out with friends that are going to hurt. The waitresses and the clerks in the stores that you end up buying more game day gear at that will be let go because the profit these businesses counted on during the winter wont be there.

This is a fight about billions; between millionaires that is going to affects millions more than they could ever care about.

Sure hockey will be harder for many of the sunbelt fans; but for me in Michigan not so much. In fact it will save me money. I do not need to drive the over an hour to Detroit. I have plenty of other leagues and teams to go watch; and their ticket prices are much better. I can head to Ann Arbor or East Lansing to catch some collegiate hockey; to Plymouth, Saginaw or cross the boarder into Sarnia to see the OHL; I can go to Flint and see the NAHL. This does not even take into consideration that USA development goes on in Ann Arbor nor the travel and high school leagues that play all around me.

I have hockey. I have hockey where players and owners are not fighting about how to divide up their billions.

Will I go back to the NHL after a lockout? Probably - I did after the last two; but no matter what the league I am going to enjoy the game that I love. The NHL is just one of many leagues and is the only one not playing this year.

How did the NHL go from Ted Lindsay starting a tradition of hoisting and doing a lap with the cup; because he wanted the fans (the people that pay his check) to see it up close and celebrate, to what the NHL has turned into now"�